Uuunnngggh.
How to describe Leonard Part 6? It’s a comedy depicting Bill Cosby as a retired spy who’s goaded back into the game after a vegetarian hell bent on freeing the world’s animals begins to plot to “free” the animals and begins killing people by training animals to kill. That is the surface area to it, but it doesn’t begin to do it the severe atrocious justice it deserves.
Daniel Tosh once said that there’s no real way to describe a scary dream to your friend without making it sound completely stupid and that’s how I feel about Leonard Part 6. Bill Cosby dresses up in some stupid outfits, followed behind by a loyal and predictable uptight butler, wherein Cosby gets to have a litany of stupid weapons (electric hair clippers!) and exotic footwear (ballet shoes!). Frogs can band together to hop a 1970’s land yacht off a pier and into the ocean and fearsome vegetarian sect leaders can totally dress like Gloria Gaynor.
The whole point of the movie is to be ridiculous but Bill Cosby clearly didn’t learn that there’s a big line between fun-ridiculous and ARE YOU ON DRUGS, MAN? The movie has a beginning, middle and end and some semblance of a story but the rest of the movie – you know, most of it – is just like the kind of dreams you get when you drink too much and pass out in your living room floor.
The farther I got, the more I wondered: Who told good old Bill that this was a good idea? What were the test screenings like? Did anyone pause during the making of this and say, “Bill, you’re wearing ballet shoes, that woman looks like a human disco ball and this script makes no sense; what’s going on here?”
I have to say after the grind of what feels like a million awful movies, I’m running out of things to say about them. I mean, you would think someone would take a step back and say, “Perhaps this is ill-advised” or “Maybe we should do better”. Therefore, I’m running out of sympathy for movies like these – movies that make no sense and get worse with age. But I’m nothing if not slightly positive and there’s a healthy way to use your copy of Leonard Part 6 effectively if you own it:
- Batting practice;
- Kindling;
- Your kid’s science fair project in which Junior wants to see how long it takes a DVD to melt;
- Skeet shooting/target practice;
- Coaster;
- Frisbee;
- Stress therapy with a hammer and brute force;
- Testing the strength of your kitchen disposal;
- A gift to your annoying neighbor or coworker;
- A cat toy, as long as you know, you tie some thread to it;
- Using the disc as a prop in a demonstration on how not to handle a DVD.
So, you know, some good could come out of it, theoretically.
and Doubt don’t look entertaining to me, they look like boring rehashes or tests of mental fortitude and endurance. Some movies, however, are created as Oscar bait and thus, I accept this and I move on.
The Dark Knight not being included in the Best Picture category; The Dark Knight set a new standard for comic book films but was entertaining and good, not great. Big deal.
1416 and Counting 